The Invisible Roommate
by desert cloud
Summary: Kankuro and Gaara go on a mission, but then Gaara disappears and Kankuro finds a new friend.  While they try to figure out what's going on, who what will happen to the mission?


A/N: This is my first fanfic (that I've posted), so please tell me if I totally screwed up. My brother beta tested this for me and found it necessary to add a comment in, it's in parentheses (). '_This is thinking_.' "This is talking."

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I do own Naruto, that's why I'm writing a fanfiction.

Sunlight streamed through the window, shining weakly upon a large sleeping figure with its early morning rays. The man in question groaned and turned around, trying to avoid the light that dragged him from his oh-so-pleasant dreams. Sighing loudly in the realization he wouldn't be going back to dream land any time soon, he threw his blanket off and let the cold air hit his body in an attempt to get himself moving. After yawning and stretching, the shinobi swung his feet over the side of the motel bed and sat up. '_I hate traveling_.'He thought as he rubbed his bleary eyes.

Several days before, Kankuro had been assigned a mission with his regular team, but when Temari had been hurt during training, the mission was officially postponed and Baki was sent on a different mission. However, for some reason, the Kazekage had changed his mind and decided to send them anyway, regardless of the ninja shortage on his team. So it was just Kankuro and Gaara. Puppet master and demon. Peeved shinobi and annoying brat. They were alone together and the both of them hated every second of it.

Remembering his dreadful situation surprisingly did not improve the Suna nin's foul mood, and he instead opted to get himself ready for another day of torturous travel. So he got up and went through his usual morning routine without interruption, which he took as a sign to take his time, and he did. By the time he was done it was noon, according to the sun (but no one can trust that shifty yellow bastard), which greatly surprised the ninja. Where was Gaara? The red-head usually woke him up early in an attempt to get moving faster. Apparently, since the little brat couldn't sleep, neither should anyone else, especially on a mission when it was wasting _his_ time.

Not that he'd admit it, but his brother's absence unnerved him, but only _slightly_, so he went outside and jumped to the roof where the brat in question was sure to be. He looked around the tiled surface to be met by empty air. '_What the…_' If Gaara wasn't in their hotel room, or on the roof, where exactly would he be? The brunette sighed in frustration for the second time that morning. Now he had to waste _his_ time finding the stupid brat. And the puppet wielder did just that and set out into the forest surrounding the inn.

A few hours of uneventful searching went by before he stumbled across what looked like the site of a struggle. After a quick survey, he found some sand that showed the suna jinjuriki he was looking for had been there. However, upon further inspection, he noticed there wasn't any blood mixed in the sand, but it was instead splattered across the battle field; and the sand, which there was an abnormally large amount of to just be left there, was soaked and sitting in a small pool of water, which explained the sand's presence. So, after the shinobi was done investigating, he went and searched around the scene, looking for a trail left by one of the people in the fight, hopefully that of a certain red-headed boy. It didn't take long for him to find a trail, the path of said trail seemed to have been created by _something_ being thrown or launched at high speeds. With a quick mental cheer at his discovery, he followed the path of destruction as the sun began its slow descent.

Kankuro had followed the trail to its end, and was disappointed to find that, yet again, he was greeted by empty air. There was nothing, no body, no footsteps, no blood. There was only one sign that there was, indeed, something that had made the trail. That something was a decimated tree that had a crater caused by the mystery object. For the thrice* time that day, he sighed in frustration.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the forest, looking aimlessly for the missing red-head. His attempts proved useless and he gave up his fruitless search and headed home, the sun setting behind him. The darkness of the night engulfed the forest before the tired shinobi had gotten back. He trudged to the motel with his eyes flickering closed every once in a while. He was almost there when he tripped over something. Cursing loudly, he fell onto the forest floor, gaining a mouth full of rotting leaves. Turning to face the offending object he realized with annoyance it was… empty, air. No, annoyance did not even come **close** to what this puppeteer was feeling. He was livid.

"I tripped over _**nothing**_!" He seethed at, well, nothing.

Getting up rather hastly (and shoving the ground with unnecessary violence), he stalked over to the offending nothing and crouched down, trying to find something that would prove he did not indeed trip over _nothing_. Suddenly, he felt a small cold hand weakly grasp his wrist and he shrieked and jumped away. Now cautious, he crept back to where the hand had been and softly called out, "Hey, anyone there?"

All that answered him was the silence of night.

"Hey, is anyone there?" he repeated, louder this time and held out his hand.

This time, the person responded in the form of shaking fingertips meeting his.

"Are you alright?" Kankuro asked, concerned about the shaking and trying to ignore the freakiness of being touched by an invisible person. When he was met by silence once again, something occurred to him. Maybe, if this person was invisible, then maybe he/she was mute as well.

"Tap once for yes and twice for no," he added and was answered by two hesitant taps.

"Are you, hurt?"

One tap.

His gaze turned to worry and he quickly came to a solution and stated, "Well I can't leave you hurt and alone in the middle of a forest. You're coming back with me."

Kankuro proceeded to scoop up the, what turned out to be, young kid with no protests from the younger one and ran the rest of the way to the cabin, trying not to jostle the smaller person.

When I got in motel room, I gently set the kid down on my bed and rushed to collect the first aid kit, a bowl of water and a wash cloth. With the items collected, I went back over to the injured kid and set the items on the bedside table.

"Hey kid, you still awake?" I asked.

There was a pause, then, a single tap on the table. In response I held out my hand.

"Show me where you're hurt," I instructed.

The kid caught on and placed his/her hand gingerly on mine, the shaking was worse now, and guided my hand to a deep gash, which I cleaned and wrapped up. The rest of the night was spent in silence as the kid guided my hand and I patched up the wounds. There were lots of bruises and cuts, and also some broken rib bones to tend to, but by midnight I was done and the kid was sleeping peacefully '_probably_' and I too drifted to sleep.

* If you watch Conan show you should know the reference.


End file.
